


The Tuesday Before

by fandammit



Series: In Between Dreams [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Everyone rallies to save them, F/M, Gen, Genfic with a healthy dose of Jopper, Hopper and Dustin get sick, Stranger Things Season 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 07:11:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12625848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandammit/pseuds/fandammit
Summary: The gate is closed and the past year has been quiet.But it's October again when Dustin and Hopper get sick out of the blue -- an illness that confuses doctors and can't seem to be explained by modern science -- and everyone knows now that they can't trust strange coincidences in the month of October.-------------Gen!fic with plenty of Jopper feels and a huge emphasis on found families, female friendships and Hopper being everyone's dad.





	1. Hopper

**Author's Note:**

> This'll eventually encompass all major characters (plus a few new ones), so I'll add characters and ships as they occur. :)

He gets sick on a Tuesday.

He remembers it for two reasons: the first because he doesn’t remember getting sick in the last five years at least despite treating his body like shit for longer than he can remember; and the second because it happens just one day before he’s supposed to take Joyce out for their first date.

It’s that second point that leaves him breathless in a way that he knows has nothing to do with the fact that he feels hot and cold at the same time, with the wheeze in his lungs that makes Jane wince.

It has everything to do with the fact that part of him still doesn’t believe Joyce actually said yes, that doesn’t believe he managed to get the words out at all.

“Of course this would happen now,” he grumbles to himself, wondering how it is he got to be the target of the universe’s long string of practical jokes.

He grabs the edges kitchen sink to steady himself, leaning over it as he takes a deep breath. His vision blurs, chest constricting painfully and –

He blinks, and suddenly he’s sitting next to Joyce. The need for a cigarette hits him heavy, and his hands fumble in his jacket until he realizes that he’s given them up.

Joyce smiles at the movement - it’s a real one, however small, and his heart speeds up at the sight of it.

“Hop,” she says teasingly, her eyes crinkling, “we pinky promised in front of the kids, remember?”

He rolls his eyes.

“That damn science teacher of theirs,” he says, making sure to grumble because he knows it makes her laugh.

She does, and he can’t help but smile at her.

“I think it’s sweet, them wanting to make sure we live a long and healthy life.” She knocks her shoulder into his. “I’ve never heard Jane talk so much as when she and Will were giving us their little presentation.”

He blows out an exasperated breath, though he smiles as he does it. It had been endearing – the way Jane and Will had sat him and Joyce down at the kitchen table, serious expressions on their faces as they presented a tri-fold posterboard on the dangers of smoking and just exactly why they both needed to quit immediately.

Truthfully, it was nothing he hadn’t known for years – known and couldn’t really be bothered to care.

But Jane had looked at him so earnestly, with those wide brown eyes and open features, and had grabbed his hand and said that all she was asking was for the opportunity for him to live to see her college graduation, to walk her down the aisle and to one day throw a ball around with his grandkids.

It’d obviously been a phrase taken directly from whatever lecture their science teacher had given that week – he’s not even sure she really knows what it means to throw a ball around – but she had given it to him so sincerely and so seriously that he thinks he could’ve been convinced to reach out and bring the furthest star in the sky to her doorstep if that’s what she had asked for.

Which honestly – some days – seems easier than giving up a daily, hourly habit that he’s been nursing for over 20 years now. But she had made him promise, and then she and Will had made him and Joyce pinky promise in front of them both that they’d quit – a childish act that they all approached with the solemnity of a holy ceremony.

And he’d kept that promise, as hard as it’s been, as incredibly grumpy as he’s been.

But dammit if he couldn’t use a cigarette right at this moment.

Joyce must see it too, because she just reaches into her pocket, takes out two lollipops and hands one over to him.

He raises an eyebrow at her.

“What the hell is this?”

“It’s a lollipop, Hop,” she says matter-of-factly, before unwrapping hers and popping it into her mouth.

He gives her a wry look.

“Because I’m a ten year old child and I’ve just been to the doctor?”

She huffs a breath.

“No, we’re trying to prevent doctor’s visits, remember?” She reaches over and looks at the wrapper, then pushes it back towards him with a satisfied look on her face. “Jonathan read that lollipops can be a good way to distract from cravings, so I went out and got a bunch for us.”

She looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to put a lollipop in his mouth like it isn’t a ridiculous thing for a grown man to walk around with a tiny dum-dum in his mouth.

But he’s long stopped even trying to push back against Joyce when she has that look on her face, and if he’s honest with himself, it’s been almost just as long since he’s even wanted to.

So he unwraps the candy and pops it in his mouth, pleasantly surprised when it turns out to be blue raspberry.

“It’s a shitty replacement for a cigarette, but it’s not the worst thing ever.” He swirls it around to the inside of his cheek so he can talk like he doesn’t have marbles in his mouth. “It helps that this is my favorite flavor.”

Joyce smiles.

“I know,” she says, glancing over at him, an expression fluttering behind her eyes that he can’t quite define. He holds her gaze for a moment longer, trying to figure it out, but she drops her eyes and quickly checks her watch before standing up.

He gets up slowly beside her, taking the lollipop out of his mouth and desperately wishing it were a cigarette instead. At least he’d feel like himself, have a way to calm his nerves instead of being a jittery mess who can’t help but turn over in his mind over and over again the fact that Joyce remembers his favorite candy flavor from when they were kids growing up together.

“See you at dinner next week?” she asks, an uncertain lilt to the words even though he and Jane have been coming to the Byers house every week for the past 11 months now.

He nods, his tongue suddenly too thick in his mouth to say anything.

She gives him a tight-lipped smile and a nod, shoving her hands in her pockets as she gets ready to head back over to Melvald’s.

He rocks back on his heels and feels like a complete idiot for being the nervous sweaty mess that he is, but he manages to reach out and rest a hand on her shoulder before she’s out of reach.

“Joyce,” he says quietly, her name coming out tender than he means to.

She turns around and glances up at him, a look that might be – softness, hopefulness – in her eyes. It gives him just the push he needs.

“Do you want to go out to dinner?”

Only the words come out jumbled and slurred, like he has that damn lollipop in his mouth still even though it’s resting between his thumb and forefinger, so it comes out sounding like, “Doyouwannagoouttodinner” instead.

He just barely stops himself from groaning out loud, settles for scrubbing a hand against his face instead.

“With me, I mean.” He clears his throat. “Just the two of us.”

Her eyes are wide, and she stares at him for just long enough that he starts to panic, calls himself an idiot in his head at least half a dozen times before Joyce reaches over and wraps his hand on her shoulder with one of her own.

She smiles at him, an open, radiant thing that he doesn’t think he’ll be able to recover from for the rest of the goddamn day.

“I’d love that, Hop.”

He feels his own smile split his face, so wide that his damn cheeks are hurting.

“Ok. You would. Perfect. Great.” He sounds like an idiot and he knows it, but he can’t find it in him to care too much right now. He squeezes her hand. “Wednesday sound good? Pick you up at seven?”

She looks down and huffs a laugh, a pale pink blush rising in her cheeks before she looks back up at him and nods, her eyes bright with happiness.

“Seven is perfect.”

He isn’t sure how he manages to smile even harder, but somehow he does.

He hesitates for a moment, then reaches out and brushes his thumb against the top of her cheek, where the blush is lighting across her skin.

Which is the exact point that he knows that this is a dream rather than a memory.

He’d wanted to reach over and brush his fingertips across her skin, a movement he’d thought about with increasing frequency over the last few months. But there’d been a crackle on his walkie, and so he’d stepped back from her instead, his hand dropping down to his belt as his smile turned apologetic.

She’d brushed it off, of course, that bright smile still on her face as she’d mouthed see you Wednesday before rushing back off to the store.

It’s that smile that holds fast in his memory, that he clings to even as the rest of the world goes dark.


	2. Jane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s sick and it’s the first week of October and she doesn’t trust October. Not after what the past two years have been.
> 
> She looks up at the clock.
> 
> “Ten, one, five,” she says out loud, even though she knows it’s ten-fifteen now, in the hopes that he’ll wake up to correct her.
> 
> He doesn’t, and the dread creeps into her stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's an associated flashback with this chapter called [Tender](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12624096), which is about the first time Jane/Eleven calls Hopper dad.

She watches the rise and fall of his chest, slow and steady like it’s been for the last hour.

There’s a knot of something, something bad sitting in her chest.

She scrunches up her face.

Dread, she thinks, which is a feeling that something bad is happening and that it’s going to get worse. She doesn’t feel her usual sense of victory, though, at sifting through the vastness of words and finding just the right one -- just more dread curling up into her chest.

He’s sick and it’s the first week of October and she doesn’t trust October. Not after what the past two years have been.

She looks up at the clock.

“Ten, one, five,” she says out loud, even though she knows it’s ten-fifteen now, in the hopes that he’ll wake up to correct her.

He doesn’t, and the dread creeps into her stomach.

She sits back down on the chair that she’s scooted right next to his bed. She holds his hand and squeezes it.

“Dad?”

He shifts in his sleep, murmuring softly, and she sits up, hopeful, waiting for his eyes to open.

He doesn’t, so after a moment she gets back up and stares at the phone, wondering if she should call...someone. She thinks of Mike first, but he’ll already be at school, where she’s also supposed to be. She knows he must be wondering where she is and that he’ll probably come over after school to see her, but she doesn’t want to wait to do something until then.

She’s still staring at the phone when she hears his voice from behind her.

“Jane?” His voice sounds rougher than it normally is, and it’s enough to make the dread start to shift into panic.

She rushes over to him and grabs his hand. She can feel tears pooling in her eyes.

“Dad?”

She catches the expression on his face and it’s enough to push back the dread that’s settled in her chest -- just a little bit.

He reaches up to wipe a wayward tear from her cheek.

“It’s ok kid, everyone gets sick.”

Not you,” she says, because it’s true. In the last almost-two years since she’s lived with him, she’s never seen him get sick. Even when everyone she knew got the flu last Christmas -- including her -- he’d managed to get through it without even coughing once.

He’d stopped by Will’s everyday when he was sick to help Joyce, then helped take care of Joyce and Jonathan when they’d both ended up getting sick just as Will was getting better.

Dustin had had it the worst, and Dad had driven him to and from doctor’s appointments because Dustin’s mom was too sick and Steve wasn’t any better, and he still ended up just fine.

She doesn’t say any of this though, just --

“Last Christmas,” because the dread is back, and when she feels this bad she starts to lose her words.

He doesn’t ask what she means -- doesn’t have to -- just huffs a laugh.

“Yeah, guess I’m owed.”

She wraps both hands around his. She doesn’t say the other thing she can’t stop thinking about -- that it’s October and everything feels slippery, that she feels like she won’t be able to breath properly until halfway through November. There’s something deep within her that doesn’t believe in unlikely circumstances in October being just a coincidence.

But she can’t find the words to say that, and she doesn’t even know that it would help. So she tries to latch onto something that might.

“What should I do?”

“You should -- ,” he looks over at the clock and frowns before turning back to look at her, “ -- be at school,” he finishes up with a stern look.

She shakes her head.

“Worried.” She takes in a deep breath. “I am worried.”

He squeezes her hand.

“I’ll be fine, sweetie, really.”

She shakes her head again and glances over to a spot by the kitchen sink.

“You fell.”

He blinks at her in surprise.

“I did?”

She nods.

“I had to move you to the bed. You were…” She searches her mind for the word. “You were shivering and then you got really hot and then you started shivering again.”

He nods at her, then glances down at himself.

“So that’s why I have every single blanket in this house on top of me?”

He says it with a smile, but she just shakes her head.

“Had to. You were shaking and your skin got really cold and pale and you were making a noise every time you breathed and -- .”

He squeezes her hand again, though a shiver goes through him as he does.

“You did great. It was just the right thing to do.”

She nods, then glances over at the phone.

“Should I…” She looks between him and the phone.

He shakes his head.

“Nah, I’ll call Flo. Then I’ll call the school, tell them you’re not coming in today.” He throws the blankets back and sits up, his upper body propped up on one arm. He frowns at his arm when it starts shaking underneath his weight, like it’s insulted him. “Shit,” he mutters, taking in a deep breath as he slowly makes his way so that he’s sitting up in bed.

She stands next to him, loops an arm around his shoulders to help him sit up as he swings his legs over the side of the bed, almost draws it back because there’s that much heat coming off of him.   
Which is weird, given how hard he’s shaking now that the blankets are off of him.

She tries to steady herself against him as he tries to stand up, once, twice, three times, before he just shakily leans against her.

“It’s like my legs don’t wanna listen to me,” he says quietly, and she’s anxious all over again at how weak he sounds just from that small movement.

“Lay back down.” She drops the first part of the sentence without meaning to, so she partially tacks it back on at the end. “Please.”

He glances down at her, looks ready to say something, but there must be something he can see on her face that makes him just nod and lower himself back down onto the bed.

Which she has to help him with -- his whole body is shaking so bad.

“There’s aspirin in the cupboard above the sink. Get me some of that and a glass of water.” He reaches up and pulls the blanket back over himself. “Please.”

She nods, already reaching out with her powers to shake out two aspirin from the bottle and fill up a glass with water from the sink. She knows he must feel bad because he doesn’t even say anything about using her powers in the house, just barely manages to sit up enough to take the pills and drink down the whole glass of water.

He collapses back onto the pillows, his eyes already closed.

“Thank you, sweetie.” The last word is barely above a whisper, and then it’s like he’s asleep immediately, that frightening wheeze back in the center of his chest, the feeling of dread back in hers.

She watches him for a moment longer before standing up, tucking the blanket around him, and walking over to the phone.

She looks at it, is reciting the number in her head, when she hears the sound of a car pulling up to the house. She frowns and walks over to the window, lifting the corner of the curtain up just enough to peek outside. The tightness in her chest loosens somewhat when she sees Nancy coming out of her car.

She unlocks all four locks at once and throws the door open. 


End file.
